The Lowdown » Gun Controlhttp://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown
KQED Public Media for Northern CASat, 01 Aug 2015 22:06:29 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.2“Yet Another Mass Shooting” in Americahttp://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/09/17/yet-another-mass-shooting-in-america/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/09/17/yet-another-mass-shooting-in-america/#commentsTue, 17 Sep 2013 18:04:20 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=9363Continue reading “Yet Another Mass Shooting” in America→]]>Note: The original version of this post stated that there have been 43 mass shootings in 25 states since 2009. These numbers have been updated to reflect a revised version of the study referred to below.

The massacre of 12 people Monday morning at a navy yard in the nation’s capital was exceedingly tragic but also alarmingly familiar.

“We are confronting yet another mass shooting,” President Obama said wearily in a briefing later that day.

A study published in January by the gun control advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns* found that more than 50 mass shootings in 30 states have occurred since Obama took office in January 2009. A sizable uptick from previous years, that’s a rate of more than one per month with an average of six fatalities per incident (in which a “mass shooting” is defined as an incident where four or more people are killed). And even since that report was published, several lesser-covered mass shootings have occurred n 2013.

According to the report:

In over half of the incidents, the shooter killed a current a former intimate partner or family member.

Assault weapons or high capacity magazines were used in less than a quarter of mass shootings, but when they were used, more than twice the number of people were shot and 57 percent more were killed.

Less than a quarter of the shootings occurred in public spaces that were so-called ‘gun-free zones.’

In only a very small numbers of these shootings were mental health concerns about the killers raised with authorities beforehand.

A horrific incident at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. last December, in which 20 children and seven adults were slain, shocked the nation and sparked calls for stricter gun laws. But the fierce political debate that ensued, and the potential for new gun control regulation, virtually evaporated from headlines after the U.S. Senate failed to pass a bipartisan bill on background checks.

Perhaps the most distressing finding in the study is that victims of mass shootings make up less than 1 percent of all gun deaths in the United States: in 2010 alone, roughly 8,775 people were killed by a firearm, according to FBI data.

* Mayors Against Illegal Guns, founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, advocates for stricter gun-control laws. In the report, the group lists every single mass shooting, along with related details about each incident.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/09/17/yet-another-mass-shooting-in-america/feed/2Lesson Plan: An Educator’s Guide to Teaching Gun Control and Gun Rights Issueshttp://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/05/13/gun-control-an-educator-produced-lesson-plan/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/05/13/gun-control-an-educator-produced-lesson-plan/#commentsMon, 13 May 2013 20:29:11 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=7832Continue reading Lesson Plan: An Educator’s Guide to Teaching Gun Control and Gun Rights Issues→]]>This lesson plan was produced in collaboration with the National Writing Project. Written by two NWP-affiliated high school English and media arts teachers – Kirsten Spall of Natomas Charter High School (Sacramento) and Chris Sloan of Judge Memorial Catholic School (Salt Lake City) – the guide suggests ways for teachers to explore and navigate the highly-charged political and emotional issues behind the topic of gun control. Based on content featured on The Lowdown, the guide provides ideas for integrating the issues into English language arts and social studies curriculum. It includes Common Core Standards Alignment, a synopsis of key background information, integration tips, and lists of issue pros and cons, creative writing prompts and best classroom practices.

In the last 30 years, at least 62 mass shootings have happened in 30 states stretching from Hawaii to Massachusetts.

That’s according to reporting by Mother Jones, which produced a comprehensive series examining gun deaths and gun control in America (in which mass shootings are defined as incidents where four or more people are murdered in a public place).

Next week, the U.S. Senate begins debate on a set of gun control proposals that came about largely in response to the horrific mass shootings last December at Sandy Hook. While lawmakers remain fiercely divided on the issue, there remains, at least, a general acknowledgement that mass shootings happen far too frequently in this country, and that action of some kind is needed to prevent future tragedies of such magnitude.

While mass shooting deaths make up only a small percentage of America’s total gun homicides, they’ve occurred with alarming frequency in recent years, an anomaly among other industrialized nations.

In the U.S., 25 mass shootings have happened since 2006. The most recent tragedy, at Sandy Hook, was the seventh mass shooting in 2012 alone. More than 75 percent of the guns used in all these shootings were purchased legally, a point that in helped recently renew the debate on a federal assault weapon ban, although that proposal now appears to be dead in the water.

The map below, produced by Mother Jones as part of its series, shows the location and specific details of each incident. Visit the site to see a detailed timeline of these incidents and the shooters involved.

Compared to the world’s other high-income nations, the United States isn’t unusually violent; we’re just unusually lethal.

That’s according to David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. He argues there is a direct connection between the U.S. being leaps and bounds ahead of any other industrialized country in terms of overall gun death rates — and the fact that we have the highest gun-ownership rates in the world

“We are a nation which does not have more crime or more violence,” Hemenway said during a forum on gun violence held shortly after the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Conn in December 2012. “We are an average nation in terms of assault, robbery and (non-firearms) homicides.”

What distinguishes the U.S., he notes, is our rate of gun violence: “The United States has a very horrific gun problem … 85 people a day dying from guns from all sorts of injury.” He adds: “Compared to the other developed countries, we are just doing terribly.”

Below are a handful of particularly striking gun homicide stats, based on incomplete 2010 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Scroll over the charts for additional information. It’s important to note, however, that statistics on gun deaths vary fairly broadly based on the federal agency reporting them. These rates, for example, differ noticeably from those reported by the FBI. Note, also, that the terms “firearms” and “guns” are used interchangeably.

The U.S. gun murder rate — which is now actually at its lowest level since the early 1980s — is still more than double that of any other wealthy nation in the world.

Hemenway notes that a child in the U.S is about 13 times more likely to be a victim of a firearm-related homicide than children in most other industrialized nations.

Firearms were the third leading cause of injury-related deaths nationwide in 2010, following poisoning and motor vehicle accidents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For the sake of comparison, in 2010 there were more than twice as many firearms deaths in the U.S. than terrorism-related deaths worldwide.

The following visualization, produced by Periscopic, uses data from the F.B.I’s Uniform Crime Report (which reported 9,595 homicides for 2010, but did not include data from Florida and Alabama), in an attempt to calculate the years of life stolen from gun murder victims. Each strand in the graph below represents a person killed by gun violence. Visit their site to explore the data by sex, age group and region.

The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, an advocacy group pushing for tougher regulations, assigned every state a grade based on 29 different policy approaches to regulating firearms and ammunition. California topped the list with an A-. New York, which now requires background checks for ammunition sales, has since surpassed it in the toughness of its gun laws. It’s the first state to enact such legislation following the Newtown shooting. And efforts in a handful of other states — including California and Colorado — to strengthen gun laws are already underway.

The Center points to 2010 statistics showing that seven out of 10 states with the strictest regulations also had that lowest gun homicide rates.

Click on image to explore interactively. Source: Guardian

But gun rights advocates opposed to tighter regulations argue that this correlation is inconclusive and misleading. They commonly counter that stricter regulations don’t do anything to prevent criminals from getting ahold of guns – they simply prevent law abiding citizens from being able to protect themselves. Many also point to states like Maine, which has some of the loosest regulations in the country (it received an F grade by gun control groups, but also has among the lowest gun homicide rates in the country). On the contrary, they argue, the strict gun laws in cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. have failed to prevent those rising homicide rates in those places.

“The gun laws in Chicago only restrict the law-abiding citizens and they’ve essentially made the citizens prey,” Richard A. Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association told the NY Times.

California vs. South Dakota: the toughest and loosest gun laws

Despite its relatively low rate of gun homicides, South Dakota got smacked with an F grade by the Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which identified it as the state with the nation’s weakest gun laws. Here’s how the two states compare:.

California: toughest gun laws

Requires all gun sales (private or otherwise) to be processed through a licensed dealer, requiring a background check

Requires gun dealers to obtain a state license (rather than just a federal one)

Bans most assault weapons and 50 caliber rifles, and prohibits the sale or transfer of large capacity ammunition magazines

Requires handgun purchasers to obtain a license, after passing a written test

Regulates its gun shows

Limits handgun purchases to one per person per month

Imposes a ten-day waiting period prior to the sale or transfer of a firearm

Maintains permanent records of firearm sales

Gives local law enforcement discretion to deny a license to carry a concealed weapon

Gives local governments authority to regulate firearms and ammunition (although the state legislature has expressly removed this authority in certain areas).

South Dakota: loosest gun laws

Does not require a background checks for private sales

Repealed its 48-hour waiting period for handgun purchases

Does not require gun dealers to obtain a state license

Does not regulate the transfer or possession of assault weapons, 50 caliber rifles, or large capacity ammunition magazines

Does not require gun owners to obtain a license, register their firearms, or report lost or stolen firearms

Does not require the reporting of mentally ill individuals to the federal database used for firearm purchaser background checks

Does not limit the number of firearms that may be purchased at one time

Does not regulate unsafe handguns

Does not allow local governments to regulate firearms

Does not have local law enforcement discretion to deny a concealed handgun permit

99 ways states have loosened gun laws

Mother Jones magazine tracked 99 state laws passed since 2009 that have made guns easier to own and carry in public, and harder for the government to track. According to the report, these laws were pushed through by the National Rifle Association and allies in state capitols. More than two-thirds of them were passed by Republican-controlled legislatures, though often with bipartisan support.

Mother Jones highlighted some of the more striking laws it came across:

Bullets and booze: In Missouri, law-abiding citizens can carry a gun while intoxicated and even fire it if “acting in self-defense.”

Short arm of the law: In Utah, a person under felony indictment can buy a gun, and a person charged with a violent crime may be able to retain a concealed weapon permit. Nebraskans who’ve pled guilty to a violent crime can get a permit to carry a gun.

When it comes to gun laws in the U.S., we’re as far from united as it gets. Beyond the loose set of federal regulations that everyone must follow, there are 50 unique state laws and even more individual county and city rules. It’s resulted in a confusing tapestry of gun regulations that vary drastically depending on where you happen to be. There’s variation in anything from background checks and handgun permit requirements to the sale of semi-automatic weapons and waiting periods. Even rules on allowing firearms on college campuses, in bars, or even in churches can differ across certain state lines.

Federal Gun Law

Federal regulations apply to everyone. But due largely to the intense lobbying efforts and political influence of the gun industry and gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association, these laws have been significantly stripped over the last two decades (see our gun control timeline); they’re now far and away the loosest (and vaguest) of any industrialized country in the world. States must meet the basic requirements, and then have the option to enact some stricter regulations … if they choose to do so.

Federal law prohibits buying or transferring firearms across state lines, owning machine guns and other certain high capacity devices, and bringing guns onto school zones (“except as authorized”). Under the law, you also can’t buy or possess a gun if you’ve been convicted of domestic assault or other serious crimes, dishonorably discharged from the military, or if you have a restraining order against you. The prohibition also includes fugitives, drug users, illegal immigrants, and those deemed mentally ill or institutionalized.

And just as Congress has increasingly weakened federal gun regulations over the last two decades, it has also stripped the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms of much of its power to adequately enforce those laws, and even to compile comprehensive data on gun ownership rates and crimes. The bottom line is that federal gun laws, as they currently stand, are pretty lightweight. And that means it’s up to individual states to step it up if they want stricter regulations.

But that gets real tricky real quick …

The background check loophole

Advocates of strong gun laws often point to the many loopholes in federal gun law. One of the biggest is the lack of required background checks for private guns sales. Under the law, all licensed gun dealers throughout the country must conduct instant background checks (using a state or FBI database) on potential buyers. But federal law does not require those checks at gun shows and other private sales – including guns bought online- where as many as 40 percent of gun purchases reportedly occur. For these types of sales, it’s often no questions asked.

Advocates for stronger federal gun control laws argue that if one state has a strict gun policy but neighboring states don’t, then what’s to stop gun buyers from just going to wherever it’s easiest to buy what they’re looking for?

California is a perfect example. Even though It has some of the toughest gun regulations in the country, it borders Arizona and Nevada, both of which

have some of the loosest: they both allow the sale of semi-automatic assault weapons and don’t require waiting periods or background checks at gun shows.

The issue is of particular relevance in cities like Chicago and Oakland, which have alarmingly high gun homicide rates despite very strict local gun control measures. As one Chicago city official put it:

“Chicago is not an island. Were only as strong as the weakest gun law in surrounding states.”

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/02/20/the-loose-laws-and-loopholes-of-federal-gun-regulations/feed/0Guns_1000_thumbsource: thinkprogress.orgThe Loaded History of Gun Laws in America [Interactive Timeline]http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/02/07/americas-loaded-history-with-guns/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/02/07/americas-loaded-history-with-guns/#commentsFri, 08 Feb 2013 01:30:58 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=5867Continue reading The Loaded History of Gun Laws in America [Interactive Timeline]→]]>Welcome to the complicated and turbulent history of gun control in America. Included as a fundamental right in the Constitution, firearms have played a pivotal role in shaping US history and culture since the colonial period. Federal gun-control laws were largely nonexistent until well into the Twentieth Century, most of them enacted in response to strings of notorious crimes. But in the last two decades, gun-control has emerged as one of the most explosive and divisive issues in American politics, particularly after a recent slate of horrific mass shootings. Scroll through the timeline to learn more about the ongoing fiery debate over the role firearms should play in our society.

More on the gun control debate

Scroll through this interactive resource, produced by the Associated Press, for more on the players, the terminology and public opinion.

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2013/02/07/americas-loaded-history-with-guns/feed/0The Geography of U.S. Gun Homicideshttp://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2012/12/19/the-geography-of-u-s-gun-homicides/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2012/12/19/the-geography-of-u-s-gun-homicides/#commentsThu, 20 Dec 2012 02:07:28 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=5265Continue reading The Geography of U.S. Gun Homicides→]]>Explore the map below for detailed figures on each state’s firearms-related homicide rates for 2010 and 2011. For every state except Alabama and Florida (which post their own records), data are taken from FBI records. The darker the shade of blue, the greater the number of gun homicides in a state for every 100,000 residents living there.

In 2011, the highest gun homicide rate (per 100,000 residents) in the nation was, ironically, in the city where the nation’s gun control laws are decided: Washington, D.C. The rate there was 12.4 (actually down from 2010). A close second was Louisiana, with a rate of 10, followed by Mississippi, with 7.4. California, the most populous state, has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country as well as the greatest number of overall homicides (1,790) and the most gun-related murders (1,220). In 2011, the state had a gun homicide rate of 3.25 (per 100,000 residents).

]]>http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2012/12/19/the-geography-of-u-s-gun-homicides/feed/0The United States of Firearms: America’s Love of the Gunhttp://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2012/12/14/the-united-states-of-firearms-americas-love-of-the-gun/
http://ww2.kqed.org/lowdown/2012/12/14/the-united-states-of-firearms-americas-love-of-the-gun/#commentsSat, 15 Dec 2012 03:34:41 +0000http://blogs.kqed.org/lowdown/?p=5205Continue reading The United States of Firearms: America’s Love of the Gun→]]>Regardless of where you stand on gun control, the fact remains that America is one gun-toting country. There are 89 guns for every 100 civilians, according to the 2011 Small Arms Survey. That amounts to roughly 270 million guns owned nationwide, far and away the highest gun ownership rate in the world. With less than 5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. is home to anywhere between 35 and 50 percent of all civilian-owned guns on earth.
Created by Simon Rogers at the Guardian (click to explore interactively)

And while America certainly does not have the highest firearms-related homicide rate in the world (it ranks 28th), our rate is more than four times that of any other industrialized country (including all of Europe, Japan, Australia, Turkey and India): in 2011, there were well over 9,000 gun-related homicides (nearly 70 percent of all homicides committed), or roughly three per 100,000 population, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. That’s about 20 times the average rate of all other developed nations, according to the Washington Post.

Max Fisher_The Washington Post (source: UNODC; using 2010 data)

In contrast, Great Britain has a gun ownership rate of about 6 guns for every 100 civilians. Last year it had 41 gun-related homicides, or .07 per 100,000 population. Meanwhile, Finland, where there are 45 guns per 100 civilians, had only 24 gun homicides in 2011, a rate of .45 per 100,000 population.

Simon Rogers_The Guardian

The infographic below, produced by Good Magazine and Column Five, further illustrates America’s deep and exceptional love affair with the gun.

Editor’s Note: The U.S. rate of gun ownership was previously stated incorrectly: there are 89 guns for every 100 civilians (NOT: 89 out of 100 civilians own a gun).

When asked, during the second presidential debate, about their respective positions on assault weapons, both candidates gave only vague responses. Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney offered any indication that they would would push for stronger gun control laws.

In case you haven’t been paying attention for the last, say, 40 years, gun control has long been a thorny issue in American politics, partly because of the ongoing heated debate over how the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted, and partly because of the National Rifle Association, a powerful lobbying group that has successfully dissuaded ranks of political leaders from pushing for more restrictive firearms legislation.

Nevertheless, it’s still surprising how little attention the issue’s received in this year’s presidential race, given the number of mass shootings this year, including one of the deadliest in U.S. history that happened just four months ago at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, in which 12 people were killed and 70 injured. As with most mass shootings in the U.S., the guns used in the massacre had all been purchased legally.

And even though violent crime rates nationwide have fallen in recent years, the number of firearm deaths in the U.S. remains alarmingly high. Between 2006 and 2010, nearly 48,000 people were killed by gunshot wounds (including suicides). The firearms industry, meanwhile, is booming. According to a recent report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, in 2010 there were close to 130,000 federally licensed firearms dealers in the U.S. In that year alone, nearly 5.5 million firearms were manufactured here, and roughly 3.3 million were imported.

The Guardian

That’s just about 9 million new firearms floating around the country!

Visit procon.org to read arguments for and against stricter gun laws, particularly regarding concealed handguns. And explore an interactive gun crime map of America, produced by The Guardian, a British-based publication (click on the image on the right).